It wasn't the most productive to have Artorias and Ornstein on guard duty for the Dungeon Fairy because both of them were too powerful for such a task, and, most importantly, they were far more useful for such a task.
Archaon needed someone who wasn't that flexible like the two Knights and someone who actually fitted for the role of the Guardian for the Dungeon Fairy, but that would mean obtaining another High-Class Creature, and that wasn't something possible in the short term.
Right now, his primary focus was on creating another Layer of the Dungeon from the Harrenhal that would be the basis for the sentient species of the Dungeon to live in there and create basically a city-state within the deepest parts of the Dungeon.
And obviously...
To farm the Dungeon Echoes.
"You seem to be tired, My Lord."
When Archaon was finished playing with the traps and chests, he sat on the Overlord's Throne, which was next to the Dungeon Heart, which was floating in the air.
The entire last Layer of the Dungeon, the Overlord's Shrine, was white marbled space that was just screaming words like "luxury" and "opulence" as he tiredly sat on the throne.
"Perhaps... but the plan already worked. They got far more greedy than they should, and soon enough, the entire army would be entering the Dungeon. When they perish here, we will lead the Monsterphilia out of the Dungeon directly at the Harrenhal. That monstrosity of the castle would be a very good headquarters and basis for my city and the perfect final layer of defense against the Dungeon Heart."
Archaon answered the Silver Knight, who appeared from the shadows as both he and Ornstein were preparing themselves for the attack of the Ironborn. Archaon already provided them with extensive information about the political layout of the warring kingdoms of Westeros and their relationship and other particularities.
Everyone knew that the Ironbornns were the worst of the worst of the society, a bunch of rapists and avengers. When they attacked the Dungeon and left behind a large number of corpses, it would be time for them to act.
Maybe at a later date, Archaon would be able to leave the Dungeon and explore the outside world for a bit. There was still one summoned companion that his Patron summoned to this world that he needed to find, and if he had to bet, the summoned companion was either in the Essos or Sothoryos, which was rather problematic.
The distance was greatest, and she was the strongest of all companions that he had right now.
Or would have had.
"So the Dungeon would become a true full-fledged kingdom in the future..."
The silver-armored knight muttered as he looked at his Lord. During the few months that both he and Ornstein were summoned to this world by the entity of the beyond, confirmed that there were many different worlds.
Many worlds were untouched by the cycle of destruction that hit the Lands of the Ancient Lords... the Lands of the Lordran were once ruled by the Lord of the Sunlight and Cinder, Lord Gwyn.
Contrary to Ornstein, the Dragonslayer, who still held a certain degree of loyalty towards Lord Gwyn, Artorias was different. He who once walked through the Abyss and was devoured by the power of the Abyss, the neverending darkness and damnation, was beyond grateful deep inside for another chance.
A chance to make a new start.
Another thing was that Artorias obtained the possibility to serve a new Lord. He was a knight first and foremost; the concept of Knighthood and serving his Lord was something that was defining his entire life and his whole existence till now.
Someone couldn't exist without serving his Lord, so he was certainly grateful that he had obtained a worthy Lord. In his eyes and opinion, Archaon was begging to showcase his potential to be a Lord through his service in the future.
"In the future, when we gather some more sentient advanced species... obviously they would be not really humans of this world, they just don't have enough Magic to withstand the density of the Dungeon."
That was something that even Artorias was aware of, despite being no Magic User himself, but he could sense the tremendously rich Magic inside the Dungeon compared to that of the world outside of the Dungeon.
In the first place, the Magic Density in this new world was far inferior to the Lordran that he was used to, and anyone who wasn't used to it would suffer rather severe consequences.
One could say that if someone from the very rich Magic Density environment was taken out and placed into an environment that was essentially Magic-less or had very low Magic Density, it would cause severe side effects.
For Magic Users, it could even lead to death from the Magic starvation or different kinds of effects. Even Artorias, who wasn't a Mage, still felt severe side effects when he was walking through the Planetos, yet at the same time, due to his connection with the Dungeon, he was effectively supplied with Magic all the time.
"This place would be rather desolate if it is filled with just species of low sentience... in the future, I want to create Layer of the Dungeon that would be one enormous metropolis like Anor Londo should have been... one where the inhabitants of the Dungoen could live, train and become stronger. As the Dungeon would be sooner or later transported into a different world, there is a high possibility of recruiting such species."
Archaon had been thinking about this problem for a long time because he didn't wish for his Dungeon to be a typical monster dungeon, where all creatures were of low intelligence or lacked any kind of sentience.
He wanted to build a true Dungeon Kingdom within the Dungoen itself, but for that, he would need to have appropriate species within his Dungoen, and creating such Dungeon Creatures through the Dungoen Heart was very pricy.
Sentience was something that was very hard to create, even with the usage of the Dungeon Heart, and the amount of the Dungeon Echoes that it would require would be staggering.
However, he was betting on the fact that he would be transported into some world where he could recruit such species into his Dungeon if he provided some group of people a safe environment to grow stronger and live...
And for that they needed the basis for the city.
"Even Commander Ornstein would be rather pleased to hear that... it would be much better than to be the guardian of the den of monsters..."
Even though Archaon was training almost daily with the Ornstein and Artorias, he was aware that the Dragonslayer and former commander of the Four Knights of Gwyn still had certain reservations about serving him as his new Lord.
In the end, right now, Archaon was just the leader of some monsters that would be going out and killing everything in sight. If he built a kingdom in the depths of the Dungeon that wasn't compromising of just Monsters, Abominations and Aberrations it would be a certainly a good start.
"I know, maybe in the future world... though, this world also has a certain kind of people that have rather strong potential in Magic and secrets of the Arcane."
Archaon said as Artorias caught on, because he knew about whom they were talking.
"The Valyrians..."
Artorias was aware of the Valyrian Race and the Valyrian Freehold, which was once the most powerful nation in the world that dominated the entire Essos and managed to tame Wyverns and use their power as their own, even though, in this world, they were calling them Dragons.
Something that Artorias found laughable because the Dragons were far more majestic and powerful than the creatures that the Valyrians managed to tame, breed, and control... yet he had to admit that even this was very admirable.
"There are still many Valyrians living in the world, many of whom are descendants of the powerful Lineages and have a strong aptitude for the Magic. They only need a little push to awaken their dormant potential because that was already lost in the annals of history together with the Doom of the Valyrian a century ago."
There were still a lot of people of the Valyrian Heritage living in this world, and many of them had certain higher degrees of the Valyrian Blood inside their veins. Archaon was long ago pondering that these people could be a good start to making his kingdom because they had strong latent potential.
What was even better and playing into his favor was the fact, that there were also many of the Valyrian slaves, that were in slavery, and he could either buy them or take control of them by sheer force of his might and amres.
He knew that slaves were the good basis of his future kingdom inside the Dungeon because once he gave them a chance to start a new life, their loyalty would be almost unquestionable, which was a thing that he aimed for.
As they were talking, suddenly an "alarm" rang though the entire Dungeon, signaling that the Dungeon had inviders and it was clear that the time has come. Archaon quickly cut the conversation with the Artorias the Abysswalker short, as he used the Dungeon Screening, to see the invaders and he was more than pleasantly surprised by what he had seen.
"Bring here, Ornstein... this is going to be a huge fight; it seems that the Ironborn are even more stupid than we have initially thought."
***
Outside of the Dungeon Entrance, Around the same time
This was probably the largest military action that the Kingdom of the Isles and the Rivers understood in the past decades since the fight against the Kingdom of Storms. King Harren Hoare sent him an additional two thousand Ironborns and around six thousand levies from the Riverlands.
At the same time, there were also many of the Ironborn Lords from the Iron Islels who came to God's Eye with their personal Household Guards and some of their levies, so the overall number of men under his command was around 10,000.
He knew that when he sent back those enchanted weapons, it ignited the greed of the King to a degree he had never seen before. Harwen as one of the most loyal soldiers to the Kingdom of the Isles and the Rivers and the right hand of King Harren Hoare, knew that the King had other ambitions.
With the unchanged Magical Weapons in his disposition, they could start encroaching the territories of the other Kingdoms and finally finish off the annoying Riverland Lords that were not really loyal... nor were Ironborn.
So, the King gave him orders and resources necessary to obtain as many of the Magical Weapons as possible. Thus, Harwen commanded this enormous invasion force into the Dungeon, as they called it, and he was to conquer the entire place with the ten thousand men.
At the same time, his guts were telling him that this was about to get bloody. Just from the previous encounter when he sent some of the Riverland levies into the caves, barely any returned alive, as most were killed.
Though now, he would be sending thousands upon thousands into the Dungeon in the hopes that they would overwhelm whatever was living inside the Dungeon and obtain all the gains and treasures from that place.
"Everything is prepared, My Lord."
Harwen stood on the top of the smaller hill that was located not far from the entrance to the Dungeon as he oversaw hundreds upon hundreds of men from both the Riverlands and also the Iron Isles as they entered the Dungeon one by one.
"Star sending them in... be careful about the levies and allow only the specifically chosen Ironborn to take the weapons from the treasure chests."
Harwen was still very wary about the Riverland levies because, in his opinion, they weren't to be trusted as they were not really one of them, and the previous experience with the Riverlandese men getting their hands on the Magical Weapons already proved to them that it was rather dangerous.
With one command from Harwen, hundreds upon hundreds of Ironborn and Riverlandese Levies started entering the Dungeon.
Everyone was unaware that this was all part of the elaborately crafted plan.
***
Tower of Storms was a very well-crafted labyrinth of countless corridors and places that were interconnected together in one endless place that was almost impossible to get around, and even finding the right direction seemed to be an impossible task.
Everything within the Tower of Storms, which was divided into 13 smaller Floors, was designed in a way to be as complicated as possible, and if someone didn't know the way beforehand, then one could spend even many, many months on the 1st Layer of the Dungeon.
Archaon spent a lot of time creating the Tower of Storms and also spent a good deal of the Dungeon Echoes to make this Layer of the Dungeon as complicated and troublesome for the invaders as possible.
Across the various Floors in the Tower of Storms, there were several Goblin Lairs that were numbers many thousands of the Goblins that were spread across the entire Tower of Storms and only waited for the moment when they could pounce on the enemy.
When the invasion of the Dungeon started, Archaon sent Yihi to the room with the Dungeon Heart and sealed the entrance and let the Terminus guard the entrance to the Dungeon Heart Room within the Overlord's Shrine.
The Tarasque Terminus was the sole Level 4 being in the entire Dungeon.
It was the best choice to guard the entrance to the Dungeon Heart Room, though the chance of someone reaching even the Garden Lair was something below 5%, and the chances of someone gathering all parts of the Key and opening the entrance to the 4th Layer of the Dungeon was exactly 0%.
It was just his own paranoia.
Not to mention, he wanted to take Ornstein and Artorias with him to lead the charge against the Ironborn and decimate them in one go, as they would then lead monsterphilia into the rest of the forces of the Kingdom of the Isles and the Rivers.
While he could take the Harrenhal at the very moment, Archaon entertained the fact that he could play with the humans a bit. Perhaps the destruction of the invasion force would cause the Harren the Black to search for reinforcements or whatever.
Nobody knows.
Still, the more destabilized the world became, the better for him because he would have a higher income than the Dungeon Echoes and also lower the chances of the human nations ganging on him and destroying the Dungeon, which would be the most problematic.
They certainly had the numbers.
Even the Kingdom of the Isles and the Rivers that they were fighting right now had a standing army, if it could be called such, of around 30,000 men if all of the levies and such were included in the number. Yet the number of the Ironborns was only small part of the 30,000, most of the were from the Riverlands and were the local Riverland Lords.
Archaon just observed how the humans were searching through the endless labyrinth of the Tower of Storms and it was getting more and more troublesome for them. Even though it was clear that they sent in 7,000, they only reached the 3rd Floor of the Tower of Storms.
Archaon has hidden the entrances to the other Floors of the Tower of Storms rather craftily and most of them were in unassuming places, making them hard to spot and find if someone wasn't using specifically designed Magic to locate such entrances.
This, coupled with the sheer fact that the entire Tower of Storms was swarming with the Goblins.
[Congratulations! Your Dungeon Creature has killed Level 1 Being. You have obtained 10 Dungeon Echoes.]
[Congratulations! Your Dungeon Creature has killed Level 1 Being. You have obtained 10 Dungeon Echoes.]
[Congratulations! Your Dungeon Creature has killed Level 1 Being. You have obtained 10 Dungeon Echoes.]
[Congratulations! Your Dungeon Creature has killed Level 1 Being. You have obtained 10 Dungeon Echoes.]
[Congratulations! Your Dungeon Creature has killed Level 1 Being. You have obtained 10 Dungeon Echoes.]
He was receiving tens of notifications from the System each minute as his number of the Dungeon Echoes was climbing at a staggering rate.
The humans were falling really, really fast within the Tower of Storms because that was the home turf of the Goblins, and even though Goblins were trash Dungeon Creautre that could be killed by one swing of the sword even by average humans, they knew how to fight cunningly.
They were very good at conducting ambushes within the Tower of Storms, and they were doing them according to the textbook, as they were reducing the number of humans by a great degree.
At the same time, Archaon also intervened a few times, as he let some of the Ironborn obtain the weapons from the treasure chests that were strategically placed across the Dungeon, as he needed the humans to get addicted to the feelings of victory and power.
When they got their hands on more and more magical weapons, it would overwhelm their senses of self-preservation, and even though many would regard his Dungeon as an utter death trap, the nobles would still be sending hundreds upon hundreds of their men into the Dungeon to search for the powerful weapons.
Because of their greed.
Greed was a very powerful motivator indeed.
Just one hour after the start of the invasion of the Dungeon, Archaon was rather surprised that some of the elite teams managed to reach the lower Floors of the Tower of Storms and were right now on the 10th Floor of the Tower of Storms.
Which was the most surprising.